First peek into research on Civil Inattention for Service Robots!
Gabriel Garcia (PhD student I co-supervise within the SWEET network) will present, at the TRAIL conference, preliminary work on endowing service robots with the social mechanism of Civil Inattention.
What’s Civil Inattention? from Wikipedia
Civil inattention is the respectful recognition of a stranger in an urban public space without treating them as an object of curiosity or intent. […] For example, people passing on a street will typically glance at each other, noticing and then withdrawing their attention.
Why for Service Robots?
Firstly, we want to avoid the death stare sometimes used by service robots to communicate “hey I see you and I’m not gonna run you over”.
Secondly and more ambitiously, we expect the robot’s polite withdrawal of attention to elicit in passersby the though “oh, the robot saw me but he is busy with its task, so I’m not gonna interact”.
Sounds interesting? Take a peek here!
